The Wisdom of Waiting

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One of my favorite passages comes from Proverbs 8, where wisdom is described as more precious than rubies and where we’re told that nothing we desire can compare with her.

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James picks this up and tells us that if anyone lacks wisdom, all we must do is ask the Father, who gives generously and without finding fault, and it will be given to us.

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Usually, wisdom is the primary thing lacking whenever destruction, chaos, and poverty are occurring. Therefore, when we experience that which stands in opposition to heaven’s blessing, perhaps our first response should not be striving harder, but asking God for wisdom.

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This raises the question: what is wisdom?

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I’ve heard it said this way: wisdom is the ability to do the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, for the right reason.

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But perhaps even deeper than that, wisdom is not merely knowing truth. Wisdom is agreement with God that produces obedient action. Or said another way, wisdom is heaven’s perspective applied in real time.

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If any one of these dimensions is missing, we end up with a portion of wisdom without the fullness of it. As a result, rather than experiencing the fullness of what God promises to be possible through His word, we experience only fragments at best, or remain completely void of it at worst.

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Often we know the right thing to do. Yet instead of heeding the wisdom echoed throughout the Psalms over and over again to wait on the Lord, we strive in our own strength and move in our own timing. Rather than experiencing the byproduct of wisdom, the blessing of the kingdom of heaven, we are left wondering why we did not experience what God promised.

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If we are willing to be honest, the reason is often simple. We were not wise. We knew the right thing, but we did not move in the right timing. We moved in impatience, fear, discontentment, or soulish zeal rather than faith, trust, and hope.

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Yet waiting on God is not inactivity. It is active trust that refuses to manufacture what only God can establish. Isaiah says that in quietness and trust shall be our strength. Waiting is not the absence of movement. Waiting is refusing to move ahead of love.

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David understood this. He had already heard heaven’s perspective regarding his future. He knew he would become king of Israel. Yet if he had ignored the wisdom of timing, he would have obtained a portion of the promise without experiencing the fullness of trusting in God’s provision.

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Think of the moment in the cave when Saul stood vulnerable before him and David’s closest companions declared that the Lord had delivered him into his hands. Everything looked aligned. Opportunity seemed present. Confirmation appeared obvious. Open doors stood before him. Yet David discerned something deeper. He understood that opportunity does not automatically equal permission.

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Had he moved merely because the moment appeared favorable, he would have acted foolishly. Instead, his heart was struck with conviction and he surrendered to the wisdom of patience. David resisted taking a throne before the Father gave it. Jesus resisted proving sonship before the Father established it. Both reveal that wisdom refuses to grasp what God intends to give.

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Many of us are trying to possess promises before we have developed the character to sustain inheritance. God is not withholding from you. He is preparing you. What feels like delay may actually be mercy because inheritance received outside of wisdom often becomes a burden rather than a blessing.

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I have often wondered why it is that when we know the right thing, we still fail to heed the wisdom of right timing. Perhaps because we are trying to take hold of the right thing for the wrong reason.

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The pinnacle of wisdom is not merely knowing timing. It is possessing purity of motive.

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How many of us know the right thing but are secretly more led by fear than faith, more led by discontentment than obedience, or more led by soulish zeal than wholehearted surrender?

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Often hidden beneath our action is something deeper. We are trying to source our sense of value from our productivity because we have not yet discovered it in the Father’s affection.

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If we are willing to look beneath the surface, we may discover that beneath our striving is not rebellion but insecurity and a longing to feel seen, valuable, and secure. Many of us are not waiting on God because we doubt His goodness more than His power.

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This is what Jesus faced after being baptized. The first temptation was not obvious rebellion. It was proving identity by moving in God given power. Jesus had the maturity to resist the temptation to use power to establish identity.

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Often the enemy tempts us into what appears to be obedience, but underneath it is a lure to get us to source our identity from what we do rather than from what the Father has said.

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Many of you reading this may be standing at that very crossroads. You are tempted to do the right thing in the wrong timing because you are doing it for the wrong reason. If you look beneath the surface, you may discover the desire to prove that you are who God says you are, that people were wrong about you, and that God was right about you.

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The action may look righteous, but if the motive is orphaned striving, it is not wisdom. It is deception dressed as devotion.

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Friends, today is the day to ask God for wisdom. But do not merely ask God for answers. Ask Him for His perspective. Ask Him what He sees that you cannot yet see. Ask Him what He is protecting you from in the waiting. Ask Him what part of your heart He is forming while you remain in process.

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Sometimes the greatest gift of waiting is not receiving what was promised. It is becoming the type of person who can carry it.

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Ask Him to give you the ability to know what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and insight into why you are doing it. Before you move, ask yourself if this is the right thing, the right timing, the right way, and the right reason. Then ask one final question:

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Can I remain loved even if I never receive the outcome?

What if the thing God wants to give you most is not the outcome you are asking for but the intimacy you will discover while waiting?

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Because sons do not strive to become accepted. Sons move because they already are.

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If you try to do the right thing for the wrong reason, what your soul is actually searching for will remain out of reach. The value, the contentment, and the rest that your heart longs for cannot be found in striving.

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The answer to striving is not restraint. It is affection.

Stop striving long enough to let yourself be loved. The Father is not withholding Himself until you become wise. Wisdom begins by discovering you are already welcomed.

Receive His affection. Trust His promise. Wait on the Lord.

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Do not move to obtain love. Move because you have already received it.